Life, but not as we know it
by Elendilmir
Summary: Something else Starfleet Command doesn't know. New - mortal - students, new rules of the Game, old very old crowd. Space exploration through the eyes of Earthly not Terran creatures. DM, M, A, NW Enterprise crew. And Pike the Awesome Guy.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned Rysher Entertainment et Al and Paramount pictures and Gene Roddennberry... etc.,etc... not me.

- I still think, Ben, that you shouldn't have gone there for five years.  
- It's Leonard now. Leonard McCoy. Don't you appreciate at least a part of my name?

- The 'Mc'? Nice touch, Duncan would be so proud.

- Please tell me he has a pseudo. There is no cure for 'Duncan', but there must be something for 'of the clan MacLaud'.

- Yes, he is believed dead for some time now. He's even become Head of Orion's Watchers' branch.

- Oh stars, I didn't need that picture.

- He was almost transferred to Vulcan, you know. That's how he staged his demise. Ben. Ben! Adam!

- Transferred by whom? 'Just a history professor', he told me!

- Well, turns out he wanted to try VSA.

- Idiot.

- You know that's why we love him. Of course, his little project of studying extraterrestrial martial arts is a triffle paranoid. But who cares? I wish he could go into 'Fleet, though. Orion is for realistic humans. But his aide isn't qualified enough - I say, not detecting an Immortal right under your nose is...

- And you?

- Well, Nick and I, we serve in SI.

- That's a shock. Do they know?

- Duncan helped a bit, contacted Terra Watchers' branch. Such a bureaucracy, though. All these papers between missions. You know. CMO can't be less difficult.

- Nick's alive?

- Thank you.

- No offence, Amanda, but a youngster with incurable monogamy is prone to make stupid mistakes.

- Well, he's alive. He's serving under Pike. Classified.

- I'll meet Pike at the reception tomorrow. He's a good man.

- Yeah. I believe, we better close this connection now.

- M'lady, your wish is my command.

- Darieux out.

- McCoy out.

Methos looked at sickbay's occupants through the door of his office.

To his right, there was a photo on the wall. His first daughter, a gift of medicine, named after Dawson - his mortal daughter, whom he had to abandon due to his wife issues with not-getting-old business.

Well. No sense in wallowing in self-pity when you have bourbon.

So, Amanda didn't know that Pike was an undercover Watcher. Duncan didn't know that Orion's Immortals only hunted intraspecies. Nick didn't know Amanda still reached out to old acquaintances. Pike watched Nick, Duncan was watched by a harem of green-skin insubordinates - even if they considered him mortal - and could be swayed to join Enterprise's crew. Under right circumstances, o' course.

Could be a real help with kids, not necessarily only the Captain Kirk.  
Perhaps... his talk with Admiral will be a bit more interesting then expected. 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: SFA- episode.

- I feel like it stuck.  
- Bones, c'mere! Gaila shouldn t have physical sensations, does she? I mean, a lecture on human naval discoveries never bored me to puking. Please turn somewhere else, sis.  
- Now you call me a sister? Kinky.

- Kids. Stop. Lay down, sweetheart, and try drinking some water (God knows I never comforted an Orion before, I'm guessing here).  
- See, they had jus' an hour o' Barnett; I tell ya, my friend, the man's insufferable, angst-inducing and, apparently, impolite.  
- Why's so?  
- 'Cause Gaila only puked on me when I was waaay impolite-r than normal.

- Pleased to meet you, ma'am.

-So, he just went about this Cooke fellow, new lands discovering an' conquering, empires fighting - - A little respect here, Jim! It's what you're gonna do in space, ya know?  
- and then I fell asleep. What's your problem, man?

- Well, our little miss here's blue for no reason.

- I saw them.  
- Saw what?  
- Such colonizations.

- And? Wait, Vulcans were the guys who Contacted Orion.  
- And were they ever as sorry for anything...  
- Jim!  
- But IMAGINE it, Bones!  
*a hypo strikes, a biobed yet again greets unconscious Kirk*  
- Now, darlin', it's Jim-Kirk-snoring-style invitation to heartfully confess.  
- Leonard.  
- Well, don' laugh, you'll choke.  
- I meant it. I saw them. Enslavement is such a harsh word. Such a ridiculous thought. A commonality.  
- Orion, huh?  
- Don' tell Jim. He's got all these ideals...  
- Who's got what? wait. It's not Orion, is it?  
- Orions aren't completely different from Terrans, Doctor. It's women.  
- I must be drunk. Colonization of women?

- Leonard, your eyes are suspiciously glazed.

- I'm just a guy, my dear. Pretty unoriginal, too.

- Anyway, hell, Doctor. I don't know how to say it. The Terran ship I flew down here on, they were so strange. The other ship, pirates, Starfleet flagman, one lonesome shuttle pilot... And then I met Jim.  
- So, you...  
- only have 2.300 samples of male behavior.

- Leonard!

- I'm all ears. Don't mind the eyes.

- Imagine there were no Vulcans. A first Contact between Terra Prime and Orion would have been disastrous. Maybe even a full-blown colonization of human males.

- That's why you puked on Jim, to mark him.  
- It's a pity you're not a girl, you'd've understood.

- ... I'll just forget that one.

- I'm just concerned. What if Jim, captaining through our poor 'Verse, was colonised?  
- I think it's 'compromised'.  
- 's a very real danger, Doctor. Oh, look, he's reviving. Jim, you owe me a dinner. Move, dear. Bye, Doctor McCoy!

- Sorry, Bones, gotta gooooo...

*a bit later, on a Shumese-encoded PADD*

- Should've said her it's called 'love'. If only someone like Duncan McLeod fell for such a girl, entertaining anyone but, as usual... I'd personally pick him a Watcher.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Beam Team just needed another opinionated Scot

It didn't take much to make First Officer Spock disagreeable.

If you were no Captain (or no Kirk), though, it took a lot to reverse this situation.

And so it was that one Duncan Smith of transporter crew (he did qualify for a Scientific Department, but as a many-times-graduate-scholar-professor-etc. Starfleet never really learnt of) was hated with a passion by his team-mates.

They were sampling.

Because Mr. Smart there - this big guy with a pony-tail and a wickedly sharp spade - just had to defend his point o' view.

Never mind that the official shore leave was months away. Wasn't it a Kirk Rule - you found a class M planet, you beam down to investigate? Wasn't it a rule that, when Security was bested in hand-to-hand combat or poker, the away team included at least one transporter crewmember?

Even Mr. Spock dared not to interfere.

Now, hear me out: the Transporter Ops were a branch o' Engineers, most efficient in beaming Things. And in Space, You Don't Choose What You Beam In. The "what you beam out" is usually decon'd or NOT dangerous or it is a bomb that Captain unknowingly smuggled on board.

The Second Rule is to Keep Calm when the Captain returns feminine-evil-eville-duplicated-ohwhatever. O'course, 'Captain' here is a variable... but not very changeable.

The Third Rule was a combination of the first two. You might think it unnecessary, but sometimes it just... got too much like a Third Rule, really.

But they didn't usually shovel Captain or sweep him off the floor, or scrub him. They were manly, after all, even Yeoman Janette Clair.

Now they had dirt, no, mud, all over protective suites. Like... farmers or something.

And Mr. Smith just smiled and clumsily - for he was not used to snatching ground from under the feet of his (hateful) team mates - beamed it in and beamed it out. In and out. Five damn inches a time. Stopping just to let them fill yet another bunch of tubes.

Somewhere dirt-side, a hole in a still unnamed Planet grew and grew. Five inches of soil at a time.

It took them two shifts. It took three Scientific Ops to stop them from trying to get rocks at "milder" frequencies.

It took two days of analyzing to ascertain that no spores of Space Fungi (really, really un-researched life forms that made Lt. Sulu drool and Capt. Kirk curse grain-depending colonies) were present There.

It only took one Threatening Meal to make Smith Listen to a Reason. Sort of. He promised.

And Mr. Spock got to change his theory of space contamination.


	4. Chapter 4

Lt. K. Riley and Yeoman D. Smith were currently in jail for interfering with a local rite.

The planet they so rudely beamed onto had Immortals, too; there already was The One, who chopped off newbies' heads without lengthy introductions. Rules of the Game, if ever existed, were known only by that (enormously ancient) guy.

Starfleet sent Lt. Riley and a Red shirt to investigate cultural levels; the beaming went wild. Perhaps an electrical storm, re-enacted by The Local One, had a part in it.

MacLeod (for Duncan Smith reverted mentally when confronted with his kind) found himself standing over a headless corpse, another man thrown aside in agony of blue-grey currents (he knew only too well what it was). Kevin Riley was luckier, if for only a second, for he was captured (knocked out and captured, to be honest) first.

So they were in jail. Somewhere Scotty was trying to pick their signals (communicators were a mess of fried plastic as another post scriptum of the Quickening). Somewheres, somethings, someones; time was running out right here.

Riley tried singing; Smith wished for drunkenness for at least one of them; it would've made Lt. bearable (or at least, his voice). Smith tried katas; Riley stifled untimely mirth (unsuccessfully); to choose anything over planning escape was preposterous. Even if his head wound made planning a distant possibility.

Riley tried, Smith tried, the cell was getting too small for the two of them while being constant in dimensions; then the Local One decided to finish somebody off. Festivities he had to endure were rather boring (he hoped this civilization either jumped off history or jumped up. For now, he was disappointed). So He who Called Storms took MacLeod out of the cell and led out of the village.

He knew Heavens would sent him a Prize some day. Defeating him would be sweet, indeed. Mortals he couldn't openly kill unless the situation demanded; once he wiped out village after village, then suddenly they knew him for the God - and he stopped. Now he had to inform this bladeless angel of impending doom and get. some. as the God he was.

Of Gods he talked, of years and heads and it sometimes felt like a confession (for MacLeod, who heard of confessions, gave and listened too). And then The Only One raised his sword and smiled at his bound prey.

- If You have rules, You either are an idiot that cries at the Moon or You are The Guy With Life-altering Pointers - basically, it means crying _on_ the Moon. I chose to give pointers, stranger. The Moon is _my_ kingdom. You are my enemy, and now you die.

- And me, I'm tone-deaf with preference for duets. - A lean figure (Methos, thought the prey, how did he control the Quickening's warning, how did they find us, I'm safe, oh no he'll joke about it _forever_...) stepped out of a tree's shadow with a blaster in hand. - You know, I'm rather tired of, shall we say, attempting to give you some privacy. Bye-bye, werewolf.

He fired, blasting the One's head off. In mute horror, MacLeod watched the blue-gray currents rise; Methos grabbed him by the belt and they vanished, just as a flash incinerated Methos' former cover.

It was so bright on the transporter's platform; there was Kevin Riley, bleeding, supported by a nurse; MacLeod was strapped on the stretcher and, with protests, escorted to the Sickbay. Planetside, a village caught fire. New Immortals, unknowing of the Game imperative, befriended or fought (but not specifically beheaded) each other. When you leave a planet behind, it goes In The Past; even Earth did.

But sometimes, the Past brings help; and a Highlander, sitting on a biobed (the goddamn monkey of a doctor decided that he was in shock and will spend the night right. here.) smiled, accepting a bourbon from his very old friend.


End file.
